Spring Fling Kidlit Contest 2021!

Happy Spring Everyone!

 

I wrote a tiny Spring story for the fun and fabulous Spring Fling Kidlit Contest! A huge thank you to Kaitlyn Leann Sanchez and Ciara O’Neal for this wonderful opportunity! My story runs 137 words.

 

Thank you for reading...

Jacqueline and the Bean

by Amber Lane

 

It’s Springtime!

 

 

Everything is blooming anew.

 

The sun warms the earth, and it’s time to plant bountiful gardens.

 

        But... not for Jacqueline.

 

 

“Jacqueline!” Mom squeals. “Watch out for my petunias!”

 

“Jacqueline!” Grandma cries. “Don’t smash the sprouts!”

 

 

Sure, Jacqueline is little. Yes, she is clumsy at times.

 

But she longs to dig her fingers into the soil, plant a bean, and watch it grow.

 

 

“You’re too little!” is the constant refrain.

        Jacqueline has enough.

 

 

At night, Jacqueline and her kitten, Luna, sneak into the garden shed to gather supplies. 

 

Then they tiptoe through the sweet, cool grass to their clubhouse and get to work.

 

 

Weeks later, the moment arrives.

 

“Mom! Grandma! Surprise!” chirps Jacqueline.

 

 

They marvel at the plant Jacqueline grew.

 

“Meow!” purrs Luna.

 

“Thank you, Luna.” says Jacqueline.

 

 

“I may be little, but I can grow!”

 

 

 

You can check out the other awesome stories soon here.

 

 

 

Trash Day

I cannot help but look into people’s recycling bins as I take a morning walk with Tylir (son) and Penny (dog). It is snooping to be sure but since the contents are right there out in the open for any passerby to see, I believe it is legal. I imagine all kinds of things about what type of people might have consumed the goods that once lived inside those boxes and cans. And, of course, I use it as an opportunity to judge people and feel better about myself. My neighbor across the street most definitely had a long week. A ton of Budweiser cans are in that bin, each one systematically smashed. I always hide our empty wine bottles under our organic milk boxes. I judge and wish not to be judged in return. Then there’s the bins with pizza boxes. I am just straight jealous of them. Already planning on some pizza for diner tonight. Some people don’t recycle at all…

It’s actually a complicated bit of psychology for me, recycling. I feel I am the type of person who recycles. I likely pride myself on that. But I am tired of washing out those yogurt containers and sometimes I just through them in the garbage and it feels sooooooo good. Rebel, rebel, how could they know? Hot tramp, I love you so.

And, please, don’t get me started on these pureed fruit pouches I buy for my spoiled kids. Gogo squeeze, I think that’s what we get. Some cute little animated dancing fruits on the pouches. I keep telling hubs to invent something so we can be millionaires. Why didn’t we think of this?! Anyway, you can save these empty pouches and upcycle them by sending them back to this company terracycle. I had a big paper bag of these taunting little pouches in my pantry for 6 months! I was so tired of seeing them in there and collecting them. I think it took me 2 ½ months to send them in which is pretty ridiculous. For free you can just drop the box at UPS and voila you are done. I told myself I am just going to recycle them from now on I mean really. Then I checked the terracycle website to see exactly what they do to incentivize you to send back pouches. Well, with the points I earned, I bought a baby chick for a family in need, gave one person 16 weeks of fresh drinking water and made a donation to Sandy Hook Elementary school. Looks like some pretty amazing things can come from me being slightly inconvenienced…

Anyway

I definitely want some people to take care of me when I am old but for sure, I had no idea the cost. 

My children bring the psychological warfare. 

6:15am. Bedroom doors opens KABLAM

Dear daughter ‘Momma! Wake up it’s time for SCHOOL, you didn’t wake up come onnnnnn!’ Due to a short week I guess her internal calendar and me telling her yesterday that today was Saturday was off. 

6:18am. Chanting rains down from upstairs, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. Mommy, Mommy.” There are two of them now jumping up and down in dear son's crib (yes he is still in a crib it’s great). 

And, they are naked. 

An incredible feat that those same children who take 37 minutes to put on enough clothes to go outside can get naked in less than 5 seconds. I haven’t even peed yet but I have fed the dog. 

I go to pee, when I hear ‘Mommy I have to go to the bathroom so bad!!!!’ Yes dear daughter got out of the crib and into the bathroom just as I sat down there. Perhaps she’ll excel at hurdles in high school… 

Dear son's turn, ‘Mommy!!! I need my black car. No not that one the other black car!!!!’ 

6:29am. Head downstairs, Chocolate croissants… YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY. Dear duaghter, ‘which one is the biggest one. That’s the one I want.’ 

Dear son to his ‘poisan’, smash, smash, smash, smash. Yum. 

Add in countless, ‘he hit mes’, growls, snatches, screams, and complaints about genitals to the complete inability to listen or clean up anything and that pretty much sums up my day. 

Rant over.

A Letter to My 4 Year That I'll Probably Never Let you See

Honey, I love you but holy crap. If I had a white flag to raise I'd be raising it. A nice glass of prosecco raised to my lips might have to do. 

Relentless from sun up "but momma the sun's out get up" to sun down "but momma it's still morning".

If I had a nickel for every "but momma". 

I know you are developmentally needing to differentiate yourself from us by making choices and being contradictory but need you be such an overachiever?

Just when I think I've found a magic bullet, you pull out the vest.  Yesterday I pretended instead of disciplining.  I was your teacher, your patient with eyepoopitous (that's right, no replacements found for that one auto-correct), your prince charming you to say pleases, we got through bedtime as pirates with pixy dust. I thought I'd figured it out. If I'd just play you'd cooperate. 

But you're like a tiny Darwin adapting each day to make my life difficult.

Today it doesn't matter if I play it, sing it, ask it 1 or 4 times, you don't wanna do it. And also you are probably going to wipe messy blueberry hands on the wall and hit your brother with the new purse I now regret buying you just for emphasis. 

If it takes me .00001 of a second to start backing out of the driveway you are all "Mommie let's GO already!!!!

As soon as I get on the phone, the real craziness awakens. "I'm your gummie bear. I'm your gummie bear. Gummie gummie gummie gummie bear bear oh yea" In a nails on a chalk board annoying insanely volumed voice. You sing over and over while running over the dog on your scuttle bug. 

I make the mistake of telling you something. Then, you proceed to ask me one hundred million times when that thing is going to happen. 

You stuck my shoelace in your butt...hole. And pretended it was your lion tail. To your credit, it stayed in there so it really worked well.

I am tired of being Prince Phillip and Ursula. 

I am tired of being bossed around. You are not the boss of me.

At a parent panel, a mother of four grown boys solemnly summed it up. She said the majority of what you do will be discipline. Teaching. Leading them to understand what the boundaries are in life. 

Good thing dear husband got our yard fenced in. I think my work is done here. 

Confession #18: There's a New Pope So I'd Better Get My Act in Gear!

Just kidding. I'm not Catholic.

Getting my act in gear is still a very good idea.

I'll start by confessing to absolutely NOT having the time to write this post.

Its currently 9:01pm just-had-an-hour-stolen-from-us-on-Sunday time. Just got the kids in bed. House is totally trashed. A crazy mess. I probably need to check my work email. I should try to work out. I definitely need to fold my laundry Everest.

I just may finish that bottle of wine and eat some chocolate instead.

I need to call my friends and bathe the dog.

I'd like to stop farting from all those dang lentils I've been eating. Yikes.

I've been working very hard on not yelling at Arden since she's 3 1/2 and I have a graduate degree so I should probably have the patience, understanding and creativity to handle her behavior without resorting to "WHAT I SAY GOES!"

I confess it is one of the more difficult things I've had to do. Turns out it's so easy to just get mad.

Hubbie saw Zero Dark Thirty so we were talking about torture. It's so easy to use one's supposed power over others but it turns out sometimes just playing with them and giving them snacks works even better.

If It Ain't Broke

With pregnancy come the dropsies. One minute it's in your hand, and the next, it's flying across the room. Not fun and not particularly safe when the objects can be broken into a million tiny not safe glass pieces. 

Being the smartipants new parents that we think we are, Kyle and I researched the best kind of plastic drinking glasses out there. After way too much time spent online, we found a made in the US of A product that claims to beat 'em all, literally. Tritan plastic bounces right back after being run over by a Chevy SUV. 

We bite and order ourselves up 6 nice drinking plastics. 

Here's what they don't tell you. 

These plastics are so much lighter (duh) than glass glasses that if you so much as look at them the wrong way they will tip over. 

I've been soaked to my underwear about 15 times since those blasted plastics arrived. 

As annoying as it is to be cleaning up spilt water all the time, there is an added benefit besides not having to clean up broken glass... It forces me into a mock mopping of my floor and that can only be a good thing. 

38 Weeks

Arden must think that means she has to ask 38 times for everything she wants. Or, perhaps she thinks it means it's how many pieces she should rip up her magazine into. I'm pretty sure it is the number of times I tried to stop myself from swearing today... Yikes. 

38 kicks, turns and punches are sometimes what my little man does in 38 seconds. I love his wild style already. 

It was roughly 38 blocks or 1.2 miles each way on our walk to Michael's today. Call me crazy as I confidently call myself but I needed to stock up on projects for Arden once our little guy makes his appearance. She won't leave me alone for 38 seconds (I've timed it) so I have no idea how I'll manage a newborn too. 

38 is definitely the number of times I've said "if you put that in your mouth one more time I'm throwing it in the garbage" today. 

I'm not sure exactly how many times today I've named off princesses, asked Arden to say please, been too hard on her or too hard on myself but I'm pretty sure it beats my number of the day. Sesame Street would need a few more picnic tables full of kids to reach our number. What's yours?